RIOTS IN BOLIVIA

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28836, 5 March 1959, Page 11

RIOTS IN BOLIVIA

Fresh Outbreak Feared

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LA PAZ (Bolivia), March 4. New anti-American demonstrations were . feared today when students turn out to attend the funeral of a youth killed in Monday’s riotous protest against a “Time” magazine article. The situation has eased somewhat, however, and officials in La Paz hoped there would be no repetition of the violence which has killed two Bolivians and injured a number of others in the last two days. No Americans have been hurt. The youth, Isidoro Condori Mendoza. . was killed when students clashed with unidentified gunmen on Monday night. Student organisations have called on all their members to attend his funeral today. A dentist. Dr. Juan Maldonado, whom police say was an innocent bystander, was killed by a stray bullet when police battled a small group of rioters outside the United States Embassy yesterday.

Americans were moved out of the Embassy yesterday, some hours before the clash which killed Mendoza, and taken with others of the 700 United States residents of La Paz to places of relative safety in the suburbs. The city was quiet during most of the day yesterday. About 12,000 marchers, organised by a union, federation, paraded through the streets, but the protest was generally orderly. The article that touched off this week’s riots quoted an Embassy official as saying the only solution to the country’s shaky economy would be to "abolish Bolivia and let its neighbours divide the country and its problems among themselves.” A United States official has denied that any member of the Embassy staff made any such remark